Search canberratimes:

Search in:

Australia second only to US in private data requests

Paddy Wood

Who's watching? The Australian government has made more requests for data from tech companies than any other government, after the US.

Australian authorities asked tech companies for more user data last year than their counterparts in any other country barring the United States, a compilation of "transparency reports" reveals.

Australian authorities made 52,017 requests for user data from companies such as Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft - or 2870 for every million internet users.

That was more than authorities in Germany, France and the UK but less than those in the US, which made a hefty 784,511 requests in total.

The figures are found in a new database created by online information-sharing site Silk, which groups all available transparency reports.

Advertisement

Most major tech firms now release the reports to try to shine a light on how government agencies use telecommunications data during investigations.

The reports usually disclose the number of user data requests companies have received in six-month increments. The user data includes the basics, such as names, addresses and email addresses, though in rarer cases may include sensitive information such the content of emails.

The information is largely sought in the course of criminal investigations and occasionally in emergency situations, such as a suicide threat.

Tech companies have a right to contest the requests, as they did successfully in 85 per cent of Australian cases.

The vast majority of Australian requests - some 40,000 - were made to Telstra, which released its first ever transparency report in March.

However, the Silk compilation does not provide an exhaustive picture of data requests.

Several companies, such as Optus and Vodafone, have not released local transparency reports, so the total number is likely to be considerably higher.

The figures also do not include requests made by national security agencies such as ASIO, which are secret.

AAP

9 comments

Is this such a bad thing? Let's face it the police or ASIO are not asking for records without a suspicions of doing something dodgy so bring it on I say.

Commenter

DC

Date and time

May 16, 2014, 5:35PM

As the article states, 85% of the requests were successfully rejected by the companies involved...so in 85% they were asking for information without enough evidence of suspicious activity, in 85% of cases it was the police who were the one's being dodgy.

Thankfully, some companies are ethical and brave enough to tell them to f-off....but what about all the companies we don't hear about...one's that are bullied or intimidated into illegally divulging private information to police acting beyond their legal rights?

So...police illegally accessing your private data by fraudulently representing their right of access to third party data holders in order to trick them into breaching their duty of care? Sounds like a big deal to me.

Commenter

adamj

Date and time

May 18, 2014, 1:33PM

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free !- Goethe

This place really has become just one big sheep farm.

Commenter

David

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

May 16, 2014, 5:42PM

true.

bahhhhh

Commenter

yup

Date and time

May 16, 2014, 8:31PM

Just what is government afraid of? Are they worried that the "rabble" will rise up against them?

Commenter

Marilyn

Date and time

May 16, 2014, 6:33PM

Right on. this is exactly the point. IT depends on the reasons why they are requesting the data. How can we be sure of its legitimate purporse or reason. In the new digital age there seems to be less protection of peoples rights to privacy. If the authorities wanted to look inside your house they need a search warrent which is reasonably strictly controlled. The same is not true for your digitl information in the web or cloud.

Commenter

Enlightened1

Date and time

May 18, 2014, 2:12PM

How many of these requests are legitimate, and how many are of them snooping? One story that did get out was many Commonwealth employees were caught making unauthorized accesses to personal records out of nosiness or because someone paid them to illegally get info over a business or personal dispute. There were other cases where the legally access was to give someone insider information for business advantage. And with all the corruption we are learning about how many of these are crooked politicians and public servants trying to cover their tracks and find out how much reporters know.

Every single one of these accesses need to be examined to see if they really were lawful.

Commenter

david

Date and time

May 16, 2014, 6:38PM

This is reminiscent of the terror laws passed by Australia.

Even gun-crazy Republicans in the US have more respect for civil liberties than Australian authorities.

The Yanks' terror laws were not as far-reaching as their Australian counterparts, despite Australia not having a terrorist attack like 11 September 2001 (thank goodness).

The Brits passed terror laws after their 7 July 2005 attacks, and the Howard Government here passed similar laws soon afterwards. Again, despite no similar terrorist attack on Oz soil.

The big difference is that Mr Howard knew the Poms have the European Convention on Human Rights to uphold their civil liberties. We don't have similar legislation here, like a Bill of Rights federally.

Shame on the Australian authorities for being so over-the-top on this.

Surely we can do better.

Commenter

Winston Smith

Location

They know.

Date and time

May 16, 2014, 6:55PM

Winston...

When the government routinely spies on it's constituents to the detriment of 'thought freedom', then the terrorists have won.

Subscribe to IT Pro

Editor's Choice

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has bolstered Malcolm Turnbull's ministerial duties, handing him greater responsibility for e-government in a push to expand the use of a single digital identity for Australians.

Data

The new roof that spans Margaret Court arena does more than keep out the weather. Built into the gantries that surround the sliding ceiling are Wi-Fi antennas that beam web access to every ticket holder.